Over the last several decades, black children have too often served as a comparison group for research focusing on the white child's development, or as a "useful" group for reaffirming notions of deviancy. More specifically, too few studies have considered black children qua black children; rather they have been considered as children or as blacks. In fact, from a social science perspective, it is a new phenomenon to view black children as black children with complicated personalities and not merely as effective reactors or adapters to the caste/class situation in 20th century America. The general intent of the proposed multifocal study, then, will be construction of a developmental framework for exploring the personal-social growth of the black child as a minority group member living in a majority group culture. Specifically, the study seekds to examine the personality and social cognitive development of the black child given his evolving cognizance of (white) America's cultural values, norms, and attitudes, which are assumed different from his own subcultural ones. Personality and social cognitive development will be investigated in three groups of black preschool and primary school children (i.e., lower inccme, middle income, and a "bused" sample). Piagetian and symbolic interactionists' notions regarding the development of the self system will be explored. That is, two consequences of social experiences - decentration and interpersonal competency - will be investigated as hypothesized influences on self concept development. In addition, because much of the theorizing on black self concept development assumes that caste position plays a cenral role, the relationship between the child's self concept, racial attitudes and race awareness will be examined.